Upholstery Stains – How to Prevent and Clean Them to Protect Your Furniture
Upholstery stains happen all the time. They are inevitable, especially if you kids or pets at home. As homeowners we want our furniture to always look brand new so we do our best to maintain and take care of our furniture. Some even go to the extent of putting on plastic covers for their upholstered furniture. All this is not necessary as long as you are well-informed on how to remove and prevent stains from damaging your upholstered furniture. By having that knowledge, you also have the opportunity to make your furniture last longer, saving you money.
When dealing with upholstery stains, the best way to do it is deal with it immediately. The longer the stain is in your upholstered furniture, the harder it is to remove it. So as soon as you spot a stain or as soon as an accidental spill happens, treat it immediately. Get the vacuum right away if you see the dirty area and hand vacuum it. When a spill happens, avoid rubbing or brushing the spot instead just blot it. Brushing it or rubbing it would only allow the liquid to spread creating a larger stain. Also avoid over wetting the affected area and if you use a cleaner, let the foaming solution do its job.
Upholstered furniture comes in all kinds of unique fabrics. So before you use a commercial product to clean it, you have to know what kind of cleaning solution is recommended. The special codes used by manufacturers would fall under categories such as S, W, S-W and X. When you have upholstered furniture with a W category, that means that you can deal with upholstery stains using water-based solution. The S category is for upholstered furniture best cleaned with solvents. The S-W tag is for those where you can use both. Lastly for the X, this means vacuum only and let the professionals do the cleaning to remove the stain.
You also have to know what type of upholstery stains you are dealing with so you apply the right technique and solution. Some of the most common types of stains found in upholstered furniture are butter and grease stains. Buttered popcorn is the best partner when watching a movie on your couch. Before you know it, no matter how careful you are, there will be accidental butter stains on your couch. When that happens, you can use a dry cleaning solvent to remove the stain. Apply the solvent with a white clean cloth and blot the stain. Then blot it again with warm water using another clean cloth and let it dry.
There are also cases where you don’t even know that some part of your upholstered furniture has stains. That is why it is recommended to vacuum and clean your upholstered furniture at least once a month or once every two months. By cleaning regularly, you can do a quick inspection for any upholstery stains as well as ensuring that your furniture is in good condition.
